Cognitively Yours

  Raja R,  Author " Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others as an end in itself " We have in the previous twenty plus blogs discussed how various biases affect our investment decisions and prevent us from maximising wealth creation. We have focused on wealth creation for personal benefit rather than for altruistic benefits. In this blog, we will discuss on “ Altruism ”, its meaning and significance. Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others as an end in itself. Improving the welfare of others often requires a cost in terms of time, energy and risk. At the opposite extreme, saving a life often requires a substantial risk to save one’s own. Seemingly altruistic acts take place all around us, from simple courtesies to heroic self-sacrifice. Does altruism exist? Those who challenge the existence of altruism do not deny that there are seemingly altruistic acts, but question whether these acts are based on altruistic motives. Pure egoists might help others as a means ...

  Raja R,  Author " Understanding the role of willpower is likely to be important for developing effective treatments for addiction and in helping guide people toward making healthy choices " A few years ago, I was having a conversation with Head of a financial institution. He was narrating to me about his investment experience. He remarked that his best investment as far as returns was one which he invested two decades before, which he lost track of as he misplaced the statement of account. He was able to lay his hands on the document two decades later and to his surprise found that it has yielded great returns. He remarked that he would not have benefited had he tracked the investment regularly, as he would have redeemed much earlier. This reminded me of a study conducted among the respondents in Chile, examined the roles of financial literacy and impatience on retirement saving and investment behaviour. It was found that the impatience measure strongly predicts respondents...